Mass rudeness
Back in the mid-90s I worked for a (very) large company that published newspapers and magazines. Each year they would lay on a huge Christmas bash, just our division alone was over 2,500 people and took place at Alexandra Palace.

Anyway, rumours for weeks had been that the celebrity host for the evening was to be Chris Evans. Now believe it or not there was a time when Mr Evans was widely held to be quite a decent and funny chap, and so generally we were all looking forward to it.

Come the evening and our merry bunch sought out a table near the front, grabbing bottles of wine off other tables as we went, and set to drinking in earnest. By the time the lights went down and we were fairly well-oiled and ready to greet the host with the warmth he deserved. The announcer made his intro, concluding with a rousing...

"...and now welcome our host for the evening, Mister Chriiiiss...Tarrant!"

The wave of indifference that greeted him as he took the stage was palpable. A smattering of applause was followed by utter, deathly silence. He assayed a few tired one-liners and lame company in-jokes, then stumbled to a halt. He quickly moved on to the awards part of the evening, and exited stage left as swiftly as possible.

Later on he returned to the stage to offer us his 'performance'. This consisted of reading from a piece of paper a series of 'amusing anecdotes' lifted directly from his radio show of the time. No-one laughed. In fact, after a few minutes, the booing began -- I can neither confirm nor deny that it originated at our table, but pretty soon the whole room was at it.

I'm afraid I can't tell you his final words before storming off stage -- he was completely drowned out by the jeers and boos -- but from the look on his face as he spoke them I suspect they weren't very polite...
( reallywittyname veraciously conspues lexiphanicism on, Thu 8 Oct 2009, 14:32, Reply)